Teaching Lean Principles through Simulation Games

In recent years, several training simulation games have been developed by academic and industry experts to support the teaching and learning activities of Lean philosophy. Using simulation games to teach Lean philosophy is an effective tool to convey the concepts to students. This paper discusses the teaching of Lean manufacturing principles to high school and undergraduate students through hands-on simulation experiments. Several Lean workshops and simulation games are offered to the students. Lean workshops aim to teach students the basics of Lean manufacturing as well as different Lean tools and techniques. Lean factory simulations include a set of hands-on experiments to teach students about manufacturing systems and Lean process improvement. In addition, Lean projects are implemented by undergraduate students in partnership with local industry. For each Lean activity, qualitative and quantitative data are collected and analyzed to assess the outcomes of the simulations, projects, and workshops.